Thursday, February 18, 2010

No. 1 spot in test is safe ! but for how long?

Kudos to the Indian team for the comprehensive win at the eden gardens...After the disappointment at Nagpur the team looked a totally different unit at kolkata where it beat the south africans in all the departments of the game...the young brigade led by Dhoni showed real character to bounce back after the mauling at Nagpur...This test win was more important in many aspects....firstly the team was playing without the big guns Dravid and Yuvraaj, secondly the numero uno spot was at stake and lastly India had only three bowlers in the second innings to dismiss the proteas, as Zaheer khan was out due to an injury, this speak volumes about the attitude of this team...

The foundation for this win was laid in the third session of Day 1 when the proteas after a great start made a mess of things and lost seven wickets in the last session for just 20 odd runs.... This nicely set up the match... the second day saw two of the greatest players of the world at their very best .... The little master sachin and his disciple Veeru made sure that India do not loose too many wickets.... Centuries by Sachin and Sehwag ensured India of overhauling the African total but still the task was incomplete as india needed a huge lead to create pressure and this job was well done by Dhoni and Laxman .... The mammoth partnership between Dhoni and Laxman ensured that India couldnt lose the match from there on....

Taking ten wickets on the batsman friendly track wasnt that easy and to add to that the rain god played the spoil sport on day 4 with just 34 overs being bowled due to bad weather....And on day five India had a huge task of getting seven proteas batsmen out...Thankfully the weather stayed alright and despite Zaheer's absence Indian bowlers led by harbhajan ensured that India clinch a famous win at the dying minutes of the last day....? Harbhajan's five wicket haul and his famous victory lap is going to remain in the memories of cricket lovers for a long time, it brings back the memories of the year 2000 series against Australia when Bhajji burst on to the scene with a series winning performance and who could forget that match winning partnership between Dravid and Laxman when India was following on!

Amongst all these accolades, we must not forget the great performance of the South African batsman Hashim Amla who scored 494 runs in three innings and was dismissed only once...Amla nearly saved the Kolkata test when he stringed a long partnership with Mornie Morkel, the number 11 batsman.....Deservingly Amla was adjudged the Man of the match and also The man of the series, giving South Africans something to cheer about

The Test series ended at 1 -1 which made sure that team India will remain number one side in Test with 124 rating points in ICC world rankings....This is a great moment for the team ....but there are still afew things that needs to be looked at to ensure that we stay at the top in future also...The experiment with Badrinath and Murli Vijay didnt seem to have worked well as both these batsmen struggled to make any mark...If India aspires to consistantly win not only at home but abroad, then we have to find good middle order batsmen because Sachin, Laxman and Dravid are not going to be around forever.... Its time to try Dinesh Kartik, Manish Pandey, Rohit sharma, Viraat Kohli and Suresh Raina in the test matches, so that we can find someone to fill in the shoes of the great trio....

Zaheer has been a stand out performer for the past two seasons but India's second seamer has been a cause of concern...To win test matches we have to find bowlers who can pick 20 wickets... Ishant, Srisanth,R.P.and Munaaf have not shown great signs for a long term prospect of being a world class bowler..... Likewise, finding a replacement of Kumble in the spin Department has not yielded any result so far... We have tried Amit mishra, Pragyan Ojha,Piyush chawla etc but none of them showed any promise.... This puts added pressure on Harbhajan Singh.....

India could try fast bowlers like Dhawal kulkarni,Sudip Tyagi and Abhimanyu Mithun...In spin department we can try R.Ashwin and even try Ravinder Jadeja as a potential all rounder.....Not to forget the Pathan brothers Irfan and Yusuf....

Reaching the top position is tough but maintaining the top position is tougher because there is very little space at the top....And the south Africans and Australians are closing in narrowing the gap.....Lets see how long we are going to remain number one!